Gerry Hostetler writes about the lives, and deaths, of the people of the Carolinas for The Charlotte Observer. You can reach her at (704) 358-5075 or e-mail ghostetler@charlotteobserver.com.
Friends and readers, today is my last day at the Observer. This isn't so much a “goodbye” as it is a “so long, see you later.”
He knew what it was to be poor, hungry, uneducated, abandoned and worse, much worse. Perhaps that's why he always tried to make life better for others.
Although she had no “chicks” of her own, she was Mother Hen to any and all who came under her radar.
You'd know his birthplace right off by his bass voice with the wonderfully rich accent. He called it “God's Country,” and its Holy City was Charleston, South Carolina.
Today has got to be the pickin'est and grinnin'est birthday he's ever had ... but it's the saddest for his family, friends and fans.
Everybody said he had no private agenda in his job with the Polkton Town Council, but actually he did: the welfare of all Polkton residents since 1967.
John Wesley “Johnny” Williams of Polkton died May 24, 2008, at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem. He was 68 and retired from CSX Railroad after 44 years.
Life isn't always just or impartial and sometimes we want to wail and moan at the great unfairnesses dealt to deserving folk.
A flying machine was still a twinkle in Orville and Wilbur Wright's eyes when she was born in 1900.
If you were in his West Charlotte High School gospel choir, you knew two things. First, you knew how to sing, and second, you knew God.
*No home delivery Monday. Special delivery and Express Mail delivered; box collections on regular schedule. Charlotte area: Full-service facility at 4800 Express Drive (across from old airport terminal) operates 6 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Friday. Saturday-Sunday hours are 8a.m.-2:30p.m.
He was an ace that Bonnie Cone, the "birth-mother of UNCC," played from the stacked deck she used to win university status for her beloved Charlotte College.
Not many people get to honeymoon in a house of such historic note, but this man did. And even in death, he continues to live on at the Hezekiah Alexander homesite on Charlotte's Shamrock Drive.
Not all true champions get a newspaper article and picture to announce their exalted status. Fewer still have a hugely gaudy belt as a symbol of their championship. But Penny did, and she wore it with pride.
He missed his twins' birthday by 15 days. Nicholas and Kristina turned 2 on April 26, and their dad was senselessly murdered on April 11, 2008.
"We lost a good woman," one church member said. "If you said `Bill,' everybody knew who you were talking about."
A newspaper writer likened his lightning speed to "running like a wisp of smoke" -- and the name stuck forevermore.
You can take the girl out of the country, but... And so it was with Lea. She would always have some -- no, a lot -- of the rural Virginia mountains in her life.
Kids. Little kids, big kids, quiet kids, loud kids, kids of all ages and colors. They were the reason for much that he did.
There was only one difference between him and Santa Claus. Santa appeared only once a year, while this guy was always around where there was a need.
Back when television was young, so was he. When WBTV signed on in Charlotte in 1949, local radio talent was scooped up to fill the open airwaves.
For most restaurants, the old adage "location, location, location" is enough to attract success. But for Charlotte's late Athens restaurant, it was "location, food, service" -- and at least one of that service staff was there for more than 30 years.
He missed, at the whim of a movie director, what could have been total immortality. That director preferred Paul Newman for the role of "Brick" in the 1958 Oscar-nominated "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Her white-gloved hand may have held a magnolia, operated a table saw or hefted a frying pan. She was equally a lady of the South and a household fixer-of-broken-things. And no wonder; she was the daughter of a master carpenter and the gracious wife of an Episcopal minister.
